Mall of America drops its lawsuit against Black Lives Matter

The Mall of America has dropped a lawsuit it filed against Black Lives Matter – meaning the restraining orders filed against three of the group's organizers are also gone.

MOA had filed for a restraining order against the whole organization last year, in advance of a planned protest for Dec. 23 – one of the busiest shopping days of the year. But the judge only granted a restraining order against three members who were said to be organizing the protest.

So while Black Lives Matter as a whole was not banned from protesting, three leaders – Michael McDowell, Miski Noor and Kandace Montgomery – were prohibited from being involved in the MOA protest.

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Susan Gaertner, the mall's attorney, told Minnesota Public Radio she filed a motion to dismiss those restraining orders this week, noting the orders had "the correct effect on the goings on that day."

Gaertner tells BringMeTheNews the three banned leaders respected the judge's orders. But she notes the lawsuit has been dropped in such a way that it can be refiled at any time if another protest occurs.

A large number of protesters still turned up at the mall's Rotunda to demand justice for Jamar Clark. It wasn't long before the group was told to leave, and they made their way out of the mall and to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

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Ultimately, the protest temporarily put the mall into lockdown, shut down some transportation lines and even closed off parts of the airport.

In 2014, an estimated 3,000 protesters took over the mall in response to incidents in Ferguson, Missouri. and Staten Island, New York. The mall pressed charges after that event as well, but dropped them almost a year later.